Conclusion

//Napoleon Dynamite //(Fox Searchlight Pictures, MTV Videos), a film directed by the young Idaho-born filmmaker Jared Hess, is a remarkable artifact of American popular culture, and one that reflects issues and stereotypes related to adolescent developmental psychology. The narrative, the characters developed in the film, the perspectives of the screenwriter and director, and our own (the audience’s) reactions to the film provide insight into how Americans feel about the culture of the American adolescent. Our analysis isolates seven broad themes related to common perceptions of adolescent behavior: depression, egocentrism, identity confusion, bullying, and unsophisticated political thought. We then analyze those themes in terms of several theories of adolescent psychology and cognitive development: these are, specifically, Erikson’s and Marcia’s theories of “identity satuses,” Elkind’s and Piaget’s theories on the importance of socialization to cognition, and Piaget’s theory of adolescent moral development. Our analysis argues that the psychological milieu of //Napoleon Dynamite// carries a significant weight of implications about standard theories of psychosocial, cognitive, and moral development in adolescence. Additionally, our analysis offers an ethnographic critique of the film. We discovered racial and ethnic stereotyping in the development of the film’s characters; we also believe we found evidence of ethnocentrism, and racial and cultural prejudice in the ideology of the filmmakers.
 * Conclusion **